Tuesday night at the London Games, some of the world's best badminton players hit some of the sport's worst shots. Sad serves into the net. Returns that sailed wide.

Howls from the crowd were loud and instant and the calls for investigation immediate.

Wednesday, four women's doubles teams - two from South Korea and one each from China and Indonesia - were disqualified. But the circumstances were complicated by the fact the rules of the sport seemed to give the athletes an incentive to lose.

The eight players were found to have tried to lose their matches, apparently because they had determined a loss would allow them to play a weaker opponent in the next round.

"The rules say you have to win every match, and that doesn't mean you throw some matches and win other matches," said Thomas Lund, the secretary-general for the sport's governing body, the Badminton World Federation.

Blatant attempts

Badminton officials introduced a preliminary round at the Olympics this year so that each team could play at least three times and not risk traveling thousands of miles only to be eliminated in the first match.

But athletes and coaches have always looked for any advantage, including throwing a match to save energy or to face an easier opponent in the next round.

There was nothing subtle about how the four teams of players - all of whom had qualified for the quarterfinals - performed Tuesday night. They repeatedly served into the net and hit shots well out of bounds. During one match, a Danish umpire took the drastic step of flashing a black card to warn the players they could be thrown out.

Disqualifications

The disqualifications threw the tournament into turmoil and prompted protests and calls for rule changes. Indonesia appealed the decision and then withdrew the appeal; the South Koreans had their appeal denied after officials reviewed the matches, interviewed the umpires and spoke to the players.

The eight disciplined players, who were found to have not tried their best and to have conducted themselves "in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport," had been scheduled to play Wednesday. After their sudden exits, they were replaced by women's doubles teams from Australia, Canada, Russia and South Africa. No coaches or teams were penalized.

Niels Nygaard, the president of the national Olympic committee in Denmark, which has some of the best badminton players in Europe, applauded the world federation's decision and blamed the coaches, not the players, for the transgressions.

Still, the tactic of purposely losing has an inner logic that has been used in other sports such as soccer and baseball.

When Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang from China lost to the South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na on Tuesday, they were trying to avoid playing the world's second-ranked women's pair of Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei, from China.

Feeble excuse

Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung of South Korea and Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii of Indonesia also tried to steer clear of high-level foes.

The Chinese did not appeal their suspension and defended their approach. "We would try hard in every match if they were elimination games," Yu said. "Because they are group stage, that's why we are conserving energy."

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